


Something Like You

by Arcanista



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: "Nice Guy" Cullen, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Catharsis, Circuitous Conversations, Dirty Talk, Dragon Age Kink Meme, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Lyrium Addiction, Masturbation, Oral Sex, POV Third Person Limited, Past Relationship(s), Present Tense, Samson POV, Samson: Social Justice Templar, Secret Relationship, Self-Medication, Sex, Solas Was a Terrible Boyfriend, Your Fav Boyfriends Are Problematic, erotic romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 09:44:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3483545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arcanista/pseuds/Arcanista
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From this Kink Meme prompt: the herald is kind and good to him and he doesn't know why, the years spent begging in the streets taught him that kindness doesn't come for free, she certainly blushes when he get close to her and even if she is not a beauty and he was never sought after for his charms,the least he can do is repay her with whatever she wants.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Inquisitor Lavellan is utterly devastated by the way Solas treated her, and with the vallaslin that mark her an adult member of Dalish society stricken from her face, she's spinning off into a spiral of misery and lyrium abuse. Samson is generally considered on about the same level as an object by those who do deal with him. Things just happen around him, and he doesn't have it in him to care. But somehow, they find something in each other, something better than the world ever intended for either of them.</p>
<p>Caveat emptor: this fic does not take a positive lens to either Cullen or Solas' behaviour. One might, however, find some catharsis about the latter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Like You

The Inquisitor reeks of lyrium, and she never did before. Not that Samson ever gets his nose all up in her business by habit, but that lyrium smell? He'd recognize it halfway across a parade ground. The Undercroft's big, but it's not _that_  big. She's been spending a lot of time down here, ever since she defeated Corypheus. Consulting with the smith about something-or-other. Armour fittings, by the way the man keeps measuring her.

But she spends more time than just that down here, though. She putters, fiddling with potions, looking over blueprints, all sorts of things. When reports come for her, she never looks directly at anyone, face kept pointed at the ground. Samson's not sure why. Elf like her might be shy around humans if they're from an alienage, but he'd always heard she was Dalish. And she's had the job for long enough that she should be able to lift her head to command. Didn't seem like she had a problem with it at the Well, or when she was all high-and-mighty, deciding his fate from her throne. But lately she doesn't look at anyone.

Maybe he shouldn't be looking. But what else is there to do here? Certainly not listen to every word the damn dwarf says to him. The last thing he wants is all that fucking cheer. Today she's got him on a low stool, and she's minutely looking over his face through some sort of rune-encrusted lens. He tries not to roll his eyes.

The lyrium smell grows maddeningly powerful as the Inquisitor approaches, enough to waken the thirst in him, hard. Dagna sees to it that he gets some when she finishes her sessions, but it's barely enough to keep him going. This? Maker, how much is she _using_?

"How's it going, Dagna?" her gaze trained on his feet. "Are you making any headway?" Her hands fiddle at each other, twisting in the hem of her shirt. He'd look at her face, but her straw-coloured hair has fallen around it, keeping him from getting much sight of it at all.

"No more than before," says Dagna, grabbing Samson by the chin and bending to look at the underside. "I can't find _anything_  special about him. I mean, he'd win a scowling competition if you wanted to enter him in one of those. No question of that there. Do humans have scowling competitions? We had some great ones down in Orzammar. The winner got a month's supply of beer."

"I'm not some prize wheel of cheese for you to grease up and race," Samson grates. It's bad enough that they talk about him like he's not right there. At least allow him _that_  much dignity. And yes, yes, he fucking well scowls at the both of them. It's enough to make Dagna jump, at least. He's pretty sure she usually forgets he's something other than a slightly recalcitrant object.

The Inquisitor, though, she does lift her head to look at him. Her cheeks are blushing hard, but he gets a good look at her, for once. Freckles all over, and her nose looks like it's been broken more than a few times. Not pretty, but it's a face with character. Wait a minute, though. He's pretty sure the last time he got any kind of look at her face, she had one of those big elvish tattoos all over it, in stark black ink. "You're right," she says, and lowers her face quickly again. "I'm sorry, Samson. That was thoughtless of me. Is there anything... how are you managing?"

"Give me a gallon of lyrium, a keg of beer, and a-- something soft to pass out on, then I'll say I'm doing well," says Samson, reining in an innuendo before he starts. Better to mind his mouth around women, especially one with the power of life and death over him. "Until then, I wake up and a day happens. Doesn't seem much like anything's going to change that. Can't say I'd be sorry if it did."

The Inquisitor's shoulders slump a little. "Oh," she says. "I... I think I understand." He damn well doubts it, but the attempt at sympathy makes his stomach twist in a strange way. "Well, if there's anything else I can do for you..." She seems to notice what she's doing with her hands, and drops them to her sides. "I mean, it doesn't hurt to ask, does it?"

She's wrong about that. And he's not about to grovel before her to ask for... shit, what would he even ask her for? Inquisition's got every right to part him of his head and toss his body over the cliffside. Anything at all he gets is icing on the cake as it is. But she seems so fucking sad, he can't help but say, "I'll let you know, your Worship."

The Inquisitor lifts her head again, for maybe half a second, and she smiles. It's strained around the edges. "Thank you, Samson," she says, and pats him on the shoulder, real gentle. Reassuring, sort of. He almost flinches, the touch surprises him so much. She can't have meant to do it. And then she lowers her hand and the moment's gone. "I'll see you later, Dagna, Samson," she says. She turns and walks away, Samson's eyes following her as she goes.

The next day she brings him a fruit tart, all knotted up in a napkin and still warm from the kitchens. He's halfway of a mind to reject it, tell her she can go piss on her pity or her guilt or whatever it is, but she hardly gives him a choice. She lifts his hand, puts the tart in it and closes his fingers around it. She meets his eyes for a second, then hurries off before he can say anything else. She sets up on the balcony in a chair, and buries her nose in a book. The falls just beyond her sweep most of the lyrium smell away, making his nostrils twitch.

Shit though. He shouldn't stare. Dagna and the smith don't care enough to talk, but apprentices gossip, and if word got out he was _staring_  at their precious Inquisitor... that wouldn't go well on him. Even if it's perfectly fucking innocent. Even if all he wants is to just breathe the lyrium air around her. Shit. He eats the fucking tart. His teeth clash together hard as he tries to bite through it. He's used to tough, something you need to really work at to even chew. This? It flakes apart in his mouth, giving way to the warm, sweet berries inside. Samson slows down on it, takes his time. There's spices in here too, ones he doesn't even have names for. He tries to think if he's _ever_  had something like this before, even before everything went to shit.

Not with the Templars, even before Meredith ran them into the ground. Oh, there was always decent food to be had, and plenty of it, but fancy rich men's pastry like this didn't feed a mess hall full of hungry soldiers. Even on holidays, the sweets weren't half so fancy. And before that... shit. He shies away from thoughts of the boy that was, all gangly with scabby knees and too-big dreams. No, that little gutter-rat never got half so fancy a tart, not for his name-day, not for Wintersend or Satinalia. But all his dreams came true in the end, didn't they? Big, fancy, famous Templar. Helped the mages, got a fancy sword, everyone in Thedas knowing his name. Fucking songs written about him. Fuck. That's where dreaming big took him.

And he still never had a tart so fancy in his life until the Inquisitor gave him one like it was nothing.

She keeps doing it, too. Little things like that. Usually stuff from the kitchens, more of those damned tarts, or cookies still chewy in the middle, one time a steaming bread roll, split down the middle with a thick pat of butter melting rapidly inside. "You're too skinny," she says, the one time he asks her anything about it, and gives him one of those split-second looks of hers, all red-cheeked and shy.

But sometimes it's other things; once she brings a thick woolly scarf on a morning when the wind whips bitterly coldly in off the balcony. Not just for him; the smith gets one wrapped around his neck against all protests, and Dagna is saddled with some bright red mittens she thanks the Inquisitor profusely for. "Just keep them," says the Inquisitor all around, bright and cheerful enough to put Dagna to shame. "I've got more of these than I know what to do with." But Samson notices she's not wearing anything heavier than a sweater herself, and that day the lyrium smell is accompanied by that of heavy drink.

* * *

One evening, he's called up to the rookery to go over some maps with the spymaster. He answers her questions as best as he can remember, noting down camps and routes in the areas she's interested in, marking places where he reckons the lyrium infestation will be thickest. Shit. There must be a lot of it by now. He gives up names of supply contacts, of dealers. Spymaster writes them all down, urging him for every bit he can scrape out of his memory.

She calls for a break after a while, gives him time to stretch his legs while she scuttles off downstairs. Right now, he's alone up here, but for the birds, and walks his way around the railing, finding a clear spot to stand. It's a long, long way down to the bottom of this tower, and there's not much bustle at this hour. Means he can hear the footsteps coming up. Is the spymaster back already? No, even from the opposite side of the tower, that thick mop of hair says it's the Inquisitor. Too much raven shit around for him to catch any of the lyrium. But he watches her look around when she gets to the top of the stairs.

He almost, almost tells her that if she's looking for the spymaster, she's not here. But the Inquisitor doesn't linger there long, and hurriedly makes her way to the tiny shrine to Andraste set in the wall. Huh. She kneels down in front of it, fingers clutching the ledge the statue of her sits on. Shit. She doesn't know he's here. He stands frozen for a long moment, but he can't fucking lurk like this. Someone sneaking around to pray like that doesn't want to be doing it in front of someone like him. He inches closer.

"... don't know what else to do," she's mumbling fast by the time he gets there. "I thought it would get easier, but it's not. I'll..." She keeps going, quieter than he can hear. Her head is low, and her fingers scrabble up at the statue's robes. Shit. He needs to do something, fast, before she gets the wrong idea. He settles for clearing his throat, doing his best to raise the sound over the constant noise of the birds.

She outright jumps to her feet and spins on him, and Samson regrets having come over here at all. Her eyes are rimmed with red from the tears streaking down her face, and she's surprised enough that she forgets to look away. "How long--" she starts, but doesn't manage to finish, voice catching on an ugly, hiccuping sob. Her lip shakes as she looks up at him.

Samson throws his hands up into the air, takes a _respectful_  step back. "I'm no eavesdropper," he says. Maker's balls, he can practically hear the song just standing next to her like this. Any Knight-Commander worth his salt would lock her up and leave her to dry out for a few days, but Samson supposes no one tells _her_  what to do. Shit though. He should have just stayed over where he was.

The Inquisitor swallows hard, and does her right best to calm herself down, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. "How much does it take?" she asks him, holding his gaze for the longest she ever has, then suddenly drops her head right down. "Don't look at me. Please."

"How much for what?" he asks, but he thinks he already knows the answer. His fingers itch in her direction, twinging toward the lyrium in the air around her. He looks away from her, away from the statue of fucking Andraste and her damned sanctimonious face. He looks over the railing instead, at the wall on the other side of the tower.

"To make you forget."

* * *

She doesn't mention the night in the rookery to him again. Samson can't say he's surprised by that, but something changes with the way she keeps bringing him things. She lingers now, just a few moments more than she ever did before. He wouldn't even notice if he hadn't already gotten used to the routine. She makes awkward small talk, asks about the work Dagna's doing on him. Asks about how he's feeling. Just a question or two every day.

Never again the question she asked when he caught her crying, praying to a god not her own. Never the question she wants to ask again. Never the question he doesn't have an answer for. Still, it makes it easier in a fucked-up sort of way. At least now he knows what she wants from him.

He's sitting there while Dagna scribbles down a ream of notes when the armour the Inquisitor's been fitted for is finally ready for her to try on. One of the smith's apprentices helps her on with it, and it becomes clear to Samson very quickly why the work's taken so long. It's a full suit of parade armour, all elaborate enamelling and intricate metalwork. Good steel all the same, just fancy; he still has an eye for that sort of thing.

The Inquisitor has to lift her head in order to get everything properly on, and she stares fixedly ahead of herself, cheeks red all the way back to her pointy ears. Her tongue pokes through the gap of a missing tooth nervously, and her head keeps dropping. She catches it every time, but she squeezes her eyes shut after the first couple times. Samson watches, tries to keep it out of the corner of his eye. Shit. He wishes he could figure out why she keeps trying to hide her face. If it was just from him, well, fair enough, but it's not.

Maker, he just wants to look at her face. More than look. He wants to feel her freckles, run his thumb down the twisted bridge of her nose. Steal the lyrium from her breath. What would he give to see her smile? A real one? Shit. Dangerous fucking thoughts. Samson starts to look away, but that's when they fit the helm down over her head, and something in her changes. The confidence he remembers comes back; her shoulders go square, her back straight. She's been a mouse up until now.

In armour, she _shines_.

She takes up a sword from one of the racks, holds it in both hands, and everyone gets clear. She goes through some basic drills to test her range of movement, and it's the most beautiful fucking thing Samson's ever seen in his life. For that second he doesn't care that he's staring, just watches as she moves. Then the moment passes, and she puts the blade away. Samson tries to look anywhere but at the Inquisitor as she goes to the smith, starts going over areas that still need work.

Dagna's elbow catches him in the ribs. "That's why we love her," she says brightly, then hands him some twisted bit of metal. "Here, hold that for me, just like that." Shit. There's no way she's the only one who caught him gawking like that. There's going to be talk about this. Too late to do a damn thing, too.

Maybe that's what gives him the push, that night. Alone, in the quiet closet of a room they've given him, he thinks of her, and he thinks of all the things he's never done. Imagines slowly lifting her chin and just looking. He thinks of telling her she's beautiful. And he thinks of his mouth on her face, her neck, her breasts, of lapping at her little slit until she trembles, until she gasps, until she moans. He doesn't know where he's gotten the notions from; he's never been one to take his time with a woman. Never really the time or space, or, be honest, the looks for someone who wanted more than a quick fuck, and that's always been good enough for him.

Now he works his hand slow enough for his imagination to work, to make his breath catch quietly, as he does his damndest to keep it down. And when he finally finishes, like a prayer, he whispers her name.

The next morning, he knows he's sunk. He can tell pretty quick that the guards set to ferry him around Skyhold aren't taking him to the Undercroft. No, they march him out the back side of the rookery tower, out into the bright sun. He blinks his eyes hard but by the time he adjusts, he's back inside. He squeezes his eyes shut to try and see straight, and wishes he hadn't when he opens them again. No, here he is in the lion's den.

Maker's teeth, Cullen's the last man in the world Samson wants to see these days. Cullen's barely a step more restrained around him than the ones who spit at his feet when he passes. And Cullen knows better, to boot. And fine. Fine, his life might not be worth a drop of piss these days. His continued existence might just be a drain on the Inquisition's _precious_  resources. But there's appropriate behaviour for a man in command of an army, who expects people to follow his lead. And the example Cullen sets... shit. Shit, why pretend that he deserves any better? His fucking pride only ever gets him into trouble.

Cullen won't even look at him. He's facing toward the window, hands behind his back. "I'm hearing some very disturbing reports out of the Undercroft," he says without preamble. Samson rolls his eyes. Cullen's not old enough to take that tone with him. Or with most anyone, for that matter. "You haven't been bothering the Inquisitor, have you, Samson?"

Bothering her. And what could he possibly have done that might bother her? Right, okay, maybe a little too much looking. But he's done his damndest to be respectful-like about it. If there's a problem, well, fair enough. Not sure it's really Cullen's business to be saying anything if that's so. "Did she say something to you?" he asks. Maybe she did.

"Well, no," Cullen admits, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. He turns around slowly, facing Samson, looking at him like he would dog shit on the bottom of his shoe. "But the Inquisitor's in a very... vulnerable state right now. And I don't want you to be-- taking advantage."

Cullen's got to be shitting him. "Taking advantage," Samson repeats, and he doesn't bother to hide the disgust. "You really think I'm that far gone, do you? Let me tell you this, if your fucking Inquisitor matters that much to you, in her 'vulnerable state', maybe it's _her_  you should be talking to, and not throwing your weight around with me. Tell _her_  not to waste precious tarts on me." His lip curls as he looks Cullen dead in the eye. No. No, he hasn't done a fucking thing wrong here, outside of a single fucking fantasy. And what he thinks in the dead of night and doesn't breathe a word of is his own damn business. "Don't fucking tell me you had me hauled in here because I looked in her general direction and she gave me a spare fucking scarf."

Cullen's head snaps back like Samson'd just slugged him good. Which just makes Samson smile all the harder. Cullen recovers his composure quickly enough though, and says, "Not just that. There's been some serious discrepancies in counts of the lyrium stores lately. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Samson?"

The smile falls fast from Samson's lips. Maker's balls, he's not accusing him of thieving, is he? Of course he is. Not that he wouldn't put it past himself, but when would he get the _chance_? Shit. He doesn't know, does he? About the Inquisitor's lyrium habit. That she's taking enough lyrium to try and chase whatever memories pierce at her right out of her head. He swallows hard, opens his mouth to shatter Cullen's precious pedestal, and stops. No. It's the Inquisitor's secret, after all. It's a terrible fucking idea, no questions. But it's not his place to tattle on her like a fucking schoolboy. He shuts his mouth.

"Well, Samson?" says Cullen, leaning across his desk towards him. "I swear, if you know something about this..."

Samson tilts his head back, lets his lip curl up on one side. "The only thing I know, _Commander_ , is how you'd have to be a bloody idiot to think I might have anything to do with these lyrium thefts. I've got fucking armed guards following me any time I go anywhere. I can't _piss_  without someone staring over my shoulder. Mind your fucking stores better, talk to your fucking quartermaster, don't waste your time interrogating me over shit you _know_  I've got nothing to do with."

It goes downhill very rapidly from there, but it's not all that long before he's escorted back off to the Undercroft. Dagna doesn't even seem to notice how late he is, just gets right to the business of taking a trimming of his hair (now, that's just insult to injury) and peering at it through an ever-smaller series of lenses.

The Inquisitor's not there, of course. Why would she be? The work she'd been spending so much time down here for is complete, after all. The only thing that surprises him about it is that he'd hoped she would be.

She's not there the next day either, or the next, and Samson catches himself missing those improbable tarts, and other things. Misses the smell of lyrium across the room. Misses those quick looks she steals at him. But fine. Fine, it's not like he's owed any of that shit. Not like he deserves any of it.

Still, it was... nice. That's the word for it. Just... nice. Shit. Shit, he'd been looking _forward_  to it, hadn't he? Now it's like he told her before. Days just _happen_  around him. He'd say he's just going through the motions, but he doesn't even have any more motions to make.

He stops counting days. He wakes up. Gets escorted to the Undercroft. Sits there while Dagna does whatever it is she does. Gets his dribble of lyrium. Goes for a walk. Nowhere too public, for his own damn good. Means he only gets spat at, not rocks thrown at him. Small fucking mercies. Not like his escort tries to stop any of it. Shit, one of them snickers whenever it happens. _Thank_  you, Cullen. Great fucking example to set. Fucking asshole.

Samson just takes it. Might be he glares, if he can work himself up to it. Usually it's just not worth it.

One afternoon, shit, it must be at least a week or more since Cullen threw his temper tantrum at him when someone in a scout's uniform comes into the Undercroft. "Can you spare him for the rest of the afternoon, Dagna?" asks the girl. "Sister Nightingale has some more questions."

Dagna's just been taking notes for the past hour. "No problem!" she chirps. "Oh, and see if she's found those bats for me yet, would you? I need bats. The more the merrier!"

And off they go, down through the Great Hall and up the steps of the rookery tower. His legs are stiff from sitting on the damn stool Dagna has him use, the one that keeps him low enough that she doesn't need to reach to get at him. No good on his knees, that, but he figures that's the least of his worries. It's still the lyrium that'll get him in the end.

The Nightingale's sitting at the big table she uses for a desk, going over some reports. It takes a minute before she even deigns to notice him. But look up she does, and she says, "Ah. Samson. I'm sorry, this just came in. Why don't you wait outside until I'm ready for you? You look like you could use some fresh air." She waves vaguely at a door behind her, and looks back to her paperwork.

Samson sighs, and goes where he's told. Outside is a balcony to nowhere; he figures maybe it's where they send the ravens off from. Weather's not bad today. Windy, this high up, but not bad.

He's also not alone. For a minute he thinks it's a guard; she's dressed like one, wearing the uniform. But a guard knows better than to lean like that on duty, elbows on top of the parapet. Her helm is on the ground beside her, and the wind is enough to have her hair sprayed wildly around her head like a halo. Something's missing, though.

"Is that what all this was about?" he asks, padding to stand beside her. He knows enough now to not look directly at her. Keeps her in the corner of his eye as he looks down over Skyhold. Can barely see anyone at all from up here. It's not bad. He kind of likes it. Then it hits him, what's missing from her. The lyrium smell is-- it's not gone, no, but it's faded. Not half so powerful as it's been on her.

She doesn't answer him directly, not that she really needs to. "Cullen... overstepped his bounds," she says. "By far." Her fingers rub the edge of the wall. "It won't happen again."

Samson lifts his shoulders, drops them. It's the saddest attempt a shrug he's ever made in his life. "No more or less than I deserve, the way I see it," He sneaks a bit more of a look at her, but keeps her still in the periphery.

The Inquisitor lifts a hand to her forehead, and splays her fingers out, squeezing at her temples. "Don't say that," she says. "You may be... who you are, but that doesn't mean you deserve cruelty. Nobody deserves cruelty."

"Don't know that it was cruel," says Samson, looking away entirely from her and out toward the mountains. "Figure Cullen's angry. Figure he's got a right to be. Get a few drinks in me, I'll say worse about him than he has to say about me."

He hears her open her mouth, take a breath to say something, but she doesn't. She shifts instead, leaning more against the parapet, legs stretched out behind her, then sighs. "You didn't tell him," she says at last. "You knew I was taking-- too much lyrium. You didn't say anything at all to him."

Samson looks back in her direction, a little bit. Her chin's resting on her arm, and she's looking right up at him. He wants to turn and face her. But he doesn't. He shrugs again. "None of my business, Inquisitor. Figured it wasn't any of his, either."

"He was so convinced you had something to do with it," says the Inquisitor. "That you'd, I don't know, talked Dagna into getting some off the books for you, or persuaded one of the guards, or, or something like that. I told him, I'd sooner believe the lyrium just _walked_  out of the stores than you even _talking_  to Dagna long enough to get her to do anything for you."

"I wish I had," mutters Samson. "Might make the trouble over it at all worthwhile."

The Inquisitor pauses, then says, "Well, there won't be any more trouble. I confessed. A few times, actually. He didn't believe me, at first. Then he... all right, he wanted to go off it himself. He's _been_  going off it. I sort of encouraged him to do it, when it got rough. So when it finally sunk in, you know, he gave me this look like I'd just killed his dog in front of him or something." She squeezes her wrists a little, rubs her chin on her arm. "I felt pretty bad, you know, up until he started telling me what that much lyrium does to a person. I didn't have the heart to tell him that was kind of the point."

Samson runs a hand back through his hair, and sighs. He's pretty much got to tell her, doesn't he? "The answer you wanted from me," he says. "I don't think it exists. If there's something you're trying to forget... Maker's balls, if only you could pick and choose. Don't think there's any right amount of lyrium for that." There. It's out there. What she wants from him, and not an answer that will satisfy. She'll be pretty much done with him now, then.

She shakes her head, then says, "Doesn't much matter now. Cullen insisted. _Insisted_  I stop taking so much. Nothing at all for the past while, not until it got out of my system. I've spent the last week curled up in the back corner of my closet." She straightens up some, looks off into the distance. " _For my own good_ , he told me. Said he didn't want to see me become something like you. Asshole."

* * *

She isn't finished with him. She stays out of the Undercroft, not that he blames her if Cullen's riding her ass, but every few days he's needed upstairs. Clarifications to make to Leliana, more details, more lines to draw on the map.  Leliana asks his opinions more than a few times, and he catches himself actually enjoying the work. Not that far off from what he's used to, really. Subtler, smaller-scale, sure. But it feels good to _see_  what can still do, as something other than a damn test subject.

Then Leliana usually finds some sort of excuse, some other work she needs doing for a while, and has him go outside. If he's ever alone out there, it's not for long. She's usually done up in a guard's uniform; sometimes a scout's. Like someone who has any sort of business being around him. Still shy of looking up at him. He never comments on it, never tries to look very hard at her, much as he wants to. And she stands right next to him, and she talks to him. Pretty much just small talk. Tells him about her day. Asks what sorts of fires Dagna's set lately.

Every now and again she complains about the tiny vials of lyrium she's on while she tries to lose some of her tolerance, and she laughs, a little bit. Pained and bitter, but still a laugh. He knows what she means, though. Probably better than anyone in Skyhold. He laughs with her, in much the same way.

One day he's left out on the balcony alone for long enough that he's not sure she's coming. When she finally does, she's got a bottle of wine under her arm. Samson raises his eyebrows at the sight, but doesn't comment while she works the cork out with her belt knife. She tosses the cork over the parapet, then takes a long swig right from the bottle.

"I think it would help to tell you," the Inquisitor says, lowering the bottle. "Why I was taking so much lyrium. It's... it's a stupid story. Promise me you won't think worse of me for it." She holds out the bottle to him.

Samson hesitates over the bottle once it's in his hand, but takes a deep pull from the bottle. He doesn't taste the wine at all: he tastes her lips on the glass and tries to ignore the ache that gives him. He passes it back to her. "I don't think I've much place to judge you. For what a promise from me is worth, you have it."

The Inquisitor leans back out over the parapet and sighs. "I guess it first _really_  started after the Well. You should... you should be glad you didn't get to drink. The song drowns out the voices, though. It doesn't take much lyrium for that, mind. But it needed, you know, a steady burn. A little bit more than normal, just spread out more through the day. Got used to having it in me all the time. That's probably what made me think of it later on..."

She falls silent for a long, long moment, then takes another few hard swigs from the bottle of wine. She takes a deep, deep breath, then asks, not commands, "Look at me. Please?"

Samson turns, slowly, and he looks down at the elven woman. She's fiddling with the wine bottle, holding it in both hands. There's something in her eyes... she's scared. Not of him, he doesn't think. He doesn't know what he's supposed to be looking for, as he takes in her freckled face. The face he's dreamed about. "I'm looking," he says, but his voice catches in his throat, comes out hoarse and small.

She nods hard, then takes another breath. He catches sight of her missing tooth, but he doesn't much care. She offers him the wine again, and he takes it but doesn't drink. Her fingers worry at each other, when she says, "They're called vallaslin." She raises a hand, waves it at her face. "The marks, the blood writing, I mean. Back... in the days of Arlathan, rich elves would tattoo them onto the faces of their slaves. That was... that was what they were for. They were slave markings." She takes some more deep breaths to steady herself. "They don't mean that anymore."

Samson lets her have the bottle again for another drink, then takes it back. "What're they for now?" he asks. Fuck if he knows the first thing about this elf business, but then he's not an elf. She's got his ear for as long as she needs it. Let her never stop talking.

"You have to understand," she says, twisting her fingers around each other. She wets her lips a few times. "It's been, I don't even know, _thousands_  of years. And the Tevinters did everything they possibly could to destroy all the culture we had. But the writing... we kept the writing, somehow. I guess maybe most of the survivors from Arlathan were slaves? I don't know. I mean, anyway. Anyway, now, they're like... they're _important_. I don't know how humans do it, but the day you get your vallaslin, that's the day you're an adult in the eyes of your clan. When I was a girl, I, we and my friends, we'd paint marks on our face with mud to try and imagine how they'd look for real, when we were all grown up. There's always a big party afterward, when you get them. What I mean is, you know, no matter what horrible thing they were to the slaves in Arlathan, they're so different in what they mean now that you couldn't even rightfully call them the same thing."

She gazes up at Samson fixedly. Her eyes are wet, but she's holding back any other tears well enough that Samson can tell she's an old hand at it. And she waits for him, watching. Shit. She's going to make him ask her. He lifts the bottle, and takes a few quick gulps. "What happened to yours?" he tries to ask it as gently as possible, but shit, his voice isn't meant for gentle. None of him's meant for gentle.

The Inquisitor jerks her face away from, hard as if he'd slapped her. "You must have seen him," she says, in a tiny voice. "The other elf. The bald one. Solas, his name was. Is. Was. He... he studied spirits, and history, and the Fade. He knew all sorts of things because of it. I suppose we were together, him and I. You know, I won't lie, I was smitten. He'd tell me about all the things he'd seen, about all the ruins he'd gone through. We danced together at the Winter Palace. Both of us elves, and all. It may sound silly to you, but I'd never imagined something like that would even be possible."

"Doesn't seem silly to me at all," says Samson. "Even without... everything that happened, I wasn't exactly born with a silver spoon in my mouth. What do you even _do_  in a palace?"

That's enough for her to look back at him, and she manages a gap-toothed smile. "Plot and murder, I guess," says the Inquisitor. "Anyway, the point is, you know, it was serious. Really serious. For me, anyway. So he takes me out to this spot, this little grotto. It was... it was really romantic, it was evening by then, oh, Maker, you don't want to hear that bit. Anyway, he, he told me he'd been trying to think of some way to show how he felt about me. He said the best gift he could offer me was 'the truth'. He told me I was... unimaginably important to him." She squeezes her eyes shut, and yanks the bottle of wine out of Samson's hands. She gulps at it like she's trying to drown herself, and Samson doesn't try and stop her. "And then he told me _that_. About what the vallaslin meant in the days of Arlathan."

"Shit," breathes Samson. He takes the bottle back from her, takes another swig of his own. No one's ever accused him of being romantic, but he's _pretty_  sure that's not how it goes.

"Oh," says the Inquisitor, and she starts to laugh. It's almost an hysterical thing, one that grips her shoulders hard and shakes them. "Oh, oh, it gets better. He knew a _spell_ , he said. A spell that would take them away. I was devastated! I didn't know what to do, what to say. I said yes! I said yes, and he did it, and he kissed me, and then he _left_  me there. He said he was a _distraction_  from my _duty_  and he would never let it happen again! As if it was _his_  place to decide for _me_  what distracts me or not! _That_  was just the way he said it, like he just _knew better_  than me. The same way he _always_  did. You know, we were together for months, and he would keep doing this... this thing, tell me I'm not like other Dalish, that they make all these mistakes and that just makes it so amazing that _I_  came out just fine, things like that. Why didn't I ever _notice_  before?"

Samson just shakes his head. That's a story with a familiar ring. "Not your fault, Inquisitor," he says. Shit, should he try and wipe her eyes or something? No. No, he shouldn't. "Not your fault at all." His knuckles itch with the memory of a time he'd caught someone pulling that line on one of the mages. Just looming over the girl, telling her how much she wasn't like other mages. And Samson just laid that sorry bastard out, knocked him hard to the floor. That was another in a long, long list of disciplinary write-ups. Worst part was hearing the rumours later, how pissed that mage was that he'd done that to someone she _fancied_. Shit. Those fucking lines worked, if you found the right ears for them.

"He just vanished after Corypheus was defeated, you know," she says, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Good riddance, I'd say but the way he did it... when I say after Corypheus, I don't mean we got back to Skyhold and he took off, I mean, you know, we were coming down the stairs of the ruins of the Temple, and he gave me another one of those _damned_  lines of his, and then the next time I turned around he was _gone_. Just gone. And that's, I mean, fine, I don't ever want to look at him again, but... it comes down to what he told me. Right after he cast his _fucking_  spell."

She takes the wine back and just guzzles down the rest of the bottle, and Samson can't say he blames her. She hiccups a few times after, but holds the drink pretty well otherwise. He reckons she's probably used to it by now. "Let me take that," he says, lightly pulling the bottle from her hands.

The Inquisitor shakes her head, and waves toward the ground. "Just... put it down somewhere. Leliana will make sure it gets taken care of discreetly. 'Ar lasa mala revas', he told me," she says, clearly enunciating the elvish words for him. "You know what that means? 'And now you are free'. Free from _what_? Anyone who ever _thought_  it was the mark of a slave has been dead for thousands of years! Free from... from ever being able to go _home_  again, from being able to look my _family_  in the eye again. Free from _any_  of the Dalish ever seeing me as one of their people again. Free to be mistaken for a city elf, and that's... I _feel_  for my cousins of the cities, I really do, but I _don't_  know anything about how they live beyond that it's far harder than any of them deserve. I'm not _one_  of them, and it's not _right_  for me to steal that place." She gesticulates wildly now, and the look of restrained tears in her eyes has gone all to anger. "Free, he said, and called me _beautiful_. That piece of shit never called me that _before_  that little stunt! Now any time I look in a damned mirror, I get to look at what he _did_  to me! I get to look at everything he _stole_  from me! He said I mattered to him and he left me and he made _damn_  sure to leave _his_  mark on me, so that I would _never_  be _free_  of _him_!"

Samson sets the bottle down, then backs up just enough to give the Inquisitor room to move. He hopes the door back into the rookery is soundproof, because she's outright yelling now. "And then! There's _Cullen_! Who acts like if he keeps doing things to 'help' me, maybe I'll decide he's the perfect fucking man for me!" By the way her lip twists on that idea, he's pretty sure that notion was never on the table. Under calmer circumstances, he'd feel smug at that, but right now, he just needs to dodge her flailing hands. "When he cut me off, he said I'd _thank_  him for it later! He looks at me like he's fucking _disappointed_  in me when I go to get the lyrium I _do_  have. He _makes_  me get it from _him_. Has me take it right _there_  in front of him, so it's _accounted_  for! I didn't have to tell him _anything_! I could have _authorized_  the usage _myself_  if I thought putting my problems down in _writing_  would have spared me his... his..." She just stops there, setting a hand down on the parapet and tries to catch her breath.

"And he was just _so concerned_  that you might be trying to take _advantage_  of me," she says, looking up at him, breath still coming heavily. She's not nearly so face-shy now that she's let that out on him. "Like, what, like you're tricking me into thinking of you when there's too many tarts? When I think of how bad the wind gets down in the Undercroft some days?" She runs both hands through her hair, tries to tame that mop before the wind catches it again. "Only one who took advantage was Solas. Now he's trying. Do you even... do you even think of me like that?"

Ah. Now, there's the question. Sweet Andraste, if ever in his life he's begged for her mercy, it's in this moment, because he knows he can't lie to her. And he doesn't want the truth to be the thing that turns her away from him. Certainly she'd be justified. He looks her in the eye, and he says it directly, "Yes. I do. I never..."

He doesn't get to finish the thought. She closes the gap between them with a swift step, and rises up on her toes. One hand darts around to the back of his head and pulls it down hard to hers. Their noses bump together before she tilts her head, and she kisses him. It's not sweet; it's filled with all the anger he's just let out on him, desperate and fierce. Their teeth bang against each other and her tongue invades his mouth, driving inside and _feeling_ , touching every surface she can reach. He snakes an arm around to support the small of her back as he leans into her, and he rests his other hand against her cheek, cupping it as gently as he can manage. He never _believed_  for so much as a second that this might be a reality. But as much as he's wanted it, as much as he's ached for it, this is for her, and this is what _she_  needs, just as much, if not more than he does. He lets her take, and take, and take until he's desperate for air, and only then does she pull her head away, move a step back from him. He straightens, left more than a little dizzy.

"I know you didn't," she says, breathing hard.

* * *

Samson's still a little surprised that she doesn't drop him after that, if he has to be honest with himself. Inquisitor had a lot pent up in her, really. He kind of half-believed that once she'd let it all out, she'd be done with him. But Leliana keeps having him brought up to work on things, and she keeps suggesting he go take a break out on the balcony. The Inquisitor keeps wanting to see him. The talk betwen them sort of changes, though.

It's not really small talk anymore, that's the thing. She'll stand beside him and hold onto his hand and she'll tell him about putting out snares for fennecs and rabbits as a kid and bringing them back to camp. She talks about the wagons she and hers lived out of, and doesn't much mind when he doesn't remember all the elvish words for that stuff. Doesn't talk about the war much, for both their sakes, but every now and again she has a good story about it, that stays away from all that... darkness.

"... with a goat?" he asks once when she's in the middle of this story about some mad barbarian chieftan, and he's not sure he can picture it.

She lifts her free hand, and she just smiles, bright as dawn. "With a goat! I swear to you, it's true! There's one, oh, she pulled through, we keep her around to trim the grass in the courtyard now. I should show you, someti... ah. Well, anyway." She brushes past that little thorn, before it can dig too deep at either of them. "But the story gets better than that. It turns out this was all some sort of... mistaken identity sort of thing? They'd been targeting Tevinters, it turns out. Well, my men were unharmed aside from the sniffles, the chieftan didn't care too much. So I did the only righteous thing I could: I set them up with a wagon-load of weapons and I exiled them to Tevinter."

The little prickle of hurt forgotten already, Samson laughs with her, laughs like he never even thought he could anymore. Her hand is pressed to his, ridged sword-calluses rubbing the back of his hand, her deft fingers laced between his bony ones. Her hands are no more delicate than the rest of her. In that moment, he squeezes her fingers tight, then bends, presses a kiss to her freckled cheekbone. Heat flushes on her cheek as he straightens, but she gives him her crooked smile, and he knows it was fine.

He even starts paying attention to what the smith is up to, so he can tell her what's going on down there. Tries to remember Dagna's ridiculous schemes. Shit, he's _smiling_  these days. One day Dagna spends a good hour just peering at his face through a glass, and the look on her face is so strange he just has to ask her what she's doing.

"You haven't scowled once at me in a week!" she says, and pulls at his cheek with her fingers. "Do you feel that? It's not stuck like that, is it? You didn't have any bad shellfish or something, did you? Oh, maybe it's an allergic reaction..." After that he tries to scowl for her, but his heart's just not in it.

One day he even goes down to see the goat that survived being catapulted at the walls of Skyhold, all by himself but for the omnipresent escort. He's too much of a city boy to know much about goats, but he figures if anything's going to survive that, it'd be that ornery beast. She's busy chewing at the grass and when he approaches, she damn near takes his fingers off. Probably if they didn't keep her, she would have stuck around either way.

Some pimple-faced kid throws a rock at him while he's out. He catches it in one hand, and turns to his escort, squeezing the fucking thing hard enough his knuckles go white. "And what the fuck do you think you're doing?" he says, back straight. "That's the sort of thing you think should just happen, do you? Yes, yes, I _deserve_  whatever I get like that, but it's not your _job_  to see to it I get what I deserve, is it? If it's not your job to keep shit like this from happening, then I'm not exactly sure _what_  your job is anymore. It's not like I'm running away. Don't think I don't notice you snicker when something like that happens. Real _fucking_  funny, I bet. You'd be a fucking embarrassment to any _decent_  commanding officer, not that you've got one, and you're an embarrassment to your _precious_  Inquisition." He lets the stone fall to the dirt, and he stalks his way back indoors.

* * *

He's up in the rookery with Leliana, thumbing through a report she wants him to look at, when she says, "The Inquisitor certainly seems happier these days."

Samson doesn't look up. "Does she?" he asks, leaning over to take some notes of his own. "Can't say I see much of her. That's a good thing, is it?" If this is some damn test of hers, he's not rising to the bait. She's definitely right about there being something fishy in this report.

"Of course it is," says Leliana. "She has been in a dreadful state. So many important affairs have gone neglected." She turns, writing out some orders on a slip of paper, then tightly rolls it up, adding it to a neat stack of messages to go out shortly. "Do you know, Skyhold is rife with rumours that the spring in her step is due to a secret lover of some sort?"

"I don't pay much attention to rumours," Samson says honestly. He might, if he were in a different position. Important to keep on top of things, that way. But he's not in command anymore. "Seems to me a story like that doesn't give her much credit, either. Think you're right about this report. Your man's adding on days here and there. Not sure I buy what he says about the weather slowing him up, not for the route he's on. But the time he's bought himself... shit, let me see that map." He starts scribbling down times and distances as he leans over it, eyeballing drop points within the extra range that gives.

Leliana rises a bit to get a better look at where he's going with this, and says casually, "Well said. I must say, you've been a pleasant surprise. Not at all what I expected. Far better for the Inquisition than I ever could have imagined." She pulls over Samson's sheet of notes, and starts marking out locations on the map when she gets what he's going for. "Your time here has agreed with you, too."

Samson looks at some of the villages Leliana's marking down and racks his memory, thinking of contacts. He points out a likely couple, "Here or here. We were running through both those villages. It might be a surprise, but I do want to _live_." Though he surprises himself by just how true the sentiment is. Time was, he just didn't care enough to want it. Too much of the time, now that he thinks about it. "Skyhold's the safest place in all Thedas for me even still. Such as it is. I'm not about to compromise a place here."

One of the spots he points out is quickly dismissed. "We've cleared that group out, and recently. Still, that just means they're liable to have moved. Perhaps... here, do you think? Still, it must be difficult for you. I'm pleased to see how well you've managed. The Inquisition does well to have someone like you around."

"I take what I can get," says Samson, and he shrugs. "It's already more than I ever expected. Not here, I don't think, too far off the beaten path. There." He drops a finger down onto one of the marked towns. "If your man's dealing in the red on the side, he's making his deals there."

"Hmmm," says Leliana, considering the map. "Perhaps. I'll make some inquiries. For now, why don't you send these messages off? Everything should be in order, just match the colour on the message to the colour of the band on the bird's foot, and take them outside. Take your time, by all means."

Is she actually _trusting_  him now? When did that start happening? He shakes his head to himself as he wrangles the birds, landing himself a few scratches on the backs of his hands. But he gets them together, and he holds them under his arm until he gets outside. Samson's just got the last one loose in the air when he hears the door, and _she's_  there. She pulls her helmet off and puts it on the ground.

Samson greets the Inquisitor today with, "I think I convinced Leliana not to kill me." The wind's coming in cold today, and she squirms his way under his arm, tugging it close around her. He gets the echoes of the smell of her lyrium, not half as strong as first caught his attention on her. But sweeter.

"Oh, really?" she asks, taking hold of his hand. "Good. I was worried about that. Is she really letting you send out the birds now?" Her hand is so warm on his.

She seems interested, so he starts telling her things, too. He's not too sure what she might want to know, really. But when she tells him, proudly, of the first time she speared a fucking boar and dragged it back to camp, he's surer than ever that he doesn't really need to paint too pretty a picture. Still, though. There's too much ugly he'd rather avoid. He comes up with a few of the more harmless stories out of Templar training, and she giggles at the pranks. When she really lets loose she makes this little snort and tosses her head. Her chin stays up a tiny bit higher every day.

One day he starts telling her about when he was a kid, the way him and everyone else near his age on their street would get together and play mages-and-Templars and beat on each other with sticks. Nothing like the real thing, just an excuse to run around and scream at each other all day while everyone's parents were off working to the bone for food. The way his little sister, too young to really play along but old enough to insist on being included, always found herself in the place of the first 'mage' captured, always trying to sneak out of the big chalked-out circle on the ground.

Then there was the night she accidentally set her hair on fire. It got put out before there was any real damage, but a few days later the real Templars came. The Inquisitor squeezes his hand tight when he tells her how they did better than most, really. Didn't scare the poor girl too bad, tried to reassure her. The way Samson promised to her, promised with all his little heart that everything would be fine. One of the Templars told him that if he practiced hard, he might get to help his sister out too, keep her safe from the demons and all of that. He tells the Inquisitor how his sister looked at him with these big, big eyes and begged him, and he promised her that one day he'd be a real templar, and he'd be there for her again.

"Happens more than you'd think, you know," he says dustily. He's holding onto her hand tight, for once, and she's just there. "It's a way off the streets, if you're good enough. Or near enough to them as we were. And you get them, sisters signing up because of brothers, cousins, all that. There's one girl I saw... shit, she must've had her kid young, and the magic took the kid young, she begged to be able to enlist for her own baby girl. Happens all the time. They don't tell you, y'know, until after you're in too deep that they keep really tight track of that sort of thing. They don't want templars near mages they're close to. Cuts down on fraternization. Order's not real big on fraternization, after all. Not that kind, anyway."

Samson squeezes the Inquisitor's hand until his knuckles have gone white. Shit, he hasn't even _thought_  about her in... too many years. "She was never any good at running away, when we played," he says, voice catching in his throat. "Maker, I hope she doesn't know."

She presses her cheek to his shoulder and lifts his hand, holding it an inch from her mouth. She just breathes on it, lets the warm air wash over the old scars that line his hand. "That one's..." she says, and swallows. "It's not your fault."

* * *

Samson spends the evening in, idly thumbing through a copy of _Hard in Hightown 3: The Re-Punchening_. When he'd mentioned he'd started in on it to Leliana, her eyes just went big as saucers. She asked him how he liked it so far, and when he told her it was probably his favourite in the series, she sent him right back down to Dagna with orders for her to make absolutely, positively sure he was well. No accounting for some people's tastes.

A knock at his door startles him into sitting upright; he barely has time to mark his spot when someone dressed as a guard slips inside hurriedly. The faint tingle of lyrium in the air eases the sudden tension away, as she presses her body against the door to make sure it's shut tight. He gets up, helps tug the helm off her head and puts it aside on his tiny shelf. "Are you sure you should be here?" he asks, close to her ear. He's never exactly tested how thin the walls are here, and he's not sure now's the time to find out.

She looks up and him and smiles, wide and impish. "Should?" the Inquisitor says. "Of course I shouldn't be here. But I want to be. That's what's important to me right now. Can I come in?"

Samson waves around the small room, stepping back for her. "There's not much to sit on." She unbuckles the plates of her armour with practiced fingers while he watches, setting it quietly down on the floor. Then off comes the chain, which she wriggles off over her head. This itself, it shouldn't be special. He's seen dozens, hundreds of people take off their armour in front of him. Shit, he's even seen her do it, back when she was having the fittings done in the Undercroft. But, this, it's... there's something about the just slightly hurried way she goes about it.

She leaves the undercoat on, but loosens the lacing around her neck some, and sits down on the edge of his bed. She pats the space next to her, and says, "Sweet Creators, but I wish that wasn't necessary. But I don't think the world's ready to see me just walk in here. Even if I'm ready to do it."

He sits beside her, close enough that he can feel her heat. When he looks at her, her cheeks are a bit pink, and her smile is... shit, it's shy in a way he's never seen from her. She takes one of his hands and holds it between them, loosely enough to make the hairs on the back all stand on end. "You all right?" he asks, watching her tongue wet at her lips.

The Inquisitor leans over and kisses him, more gently than usual, but awkwardly. Awkward like she's never done soft before, like she really wants to figure it out. He's not much help with that. He pulls back from too hard a kiss, manages to keep their noses from mashing against each other. "I am," she says like it surprises her. "I really am. Just..."

She doesn't finish the thought, not yet, but moves to sit on his lap, chest against his. His breath catches when he feels her knees pressed against his hips like that. But she presses her fingers to his cheeks and pulls his head down, just far enough for her to start kissing along his hairline. Her breath, oh, her breath. Samson raises his hands, and slides his fingers into her hair. He catches on the tangles, making her gasp on his forehead. He mumbles an apology, but she shakes it off, and instead he unpicks those little knots, letting loose hairs float freely to the ground. She presses her cheek against the long little wisps of hair that never go where he wants them to, and he finger-combs through his hair until it's soft as a cloud.

"It's just," she starts again, her lips riding down the line of his nose. His hand comes to rest against the back of her neck. "It's just, I'm not very experienced with this sort of thing." Her cheek goes hot, for just a second.

"It, uh, it wouldn't be your first time, would it?" Samson asks. Shit, he's not really sure if he knows how to handle that. His fingers shift against her neck, and he leans back just enough to look right down at her.

"No, no, not like that," says the Inquisitor, shaking her head a few times. "But not since before the Conclave. Before I left my clan, even. And I didn't exactly get around much then. As for after... I'll talk about it later, but it would just ruin the mood now. Is it... all right with you?"

"Don't worry," Samson tells her, and kisses each cheek, right beneath her eyes. He goes for a smile at her, and offers, "I'm not very good." She giggles at him, and he takes that chance to kiss her, swallowing down the bubbles of her laughter. He presses his tongue into her mouth, and feels over her teeth, sliding up into the gap up front to taste the roof of her mouth. There's the echoes of lyrium taste in her mouth that just make him press in harder, and he pulls his arms closer around her. Dammit, though, she's just wearing too much still.

She breaks the kiss and bites at his lower lip. She starts pulling his shirt upward, tugging it free nice and slow. "It's fine. You'll be fine. I've thought about it so much, I, I just couldn't stay away any longer." He ducks his head to help her get his shirt off. Does his damndest not to look too shy about it, too, but it's been at least as long for him as it has for her, and he didn't have the luxury of it being someone who liked him.

His fingers start working the lacings of the heavy under-jacket free. "Oh, so no pressure, then," he says, suppressing a laugh and then a shiver as she runs her fingers up his chest. He needs to stop on the laces for a few seconds just to take in the feeling. He ought to be disappointing to her, by all rights. It's been a long while now since she called him too skinny, but he's always run thin even in his best shape. But the way she traces her hands over the scraggles of his chest hair, it's like there's no one else in the world. His eyes close for a second, then he finally finishes with the heavy leather laces.

"Don't worry," she tells him, even as she takes her hands away from him. She has to in order to get the jacket off, but the loss of her touch against him is almost too much to bear. "I'm not very imaginative." The Inquisitor lets the jacket thud to the floor, and she looks up at him, cheeks flushed and running her teeth over her lower lip. She just has her smallclothes on underneath, and nothing fancy at all. It's just an old, sweat-stained top, tied tight as can be behind her back to hold her chest secure, to fit her armour better. It suits her far better than any fancy lace underthing ever could.

Samson looks to her eyes for just a second, then lifts his hands to her breasts. Not touching skin, not yet, just his palms taking in the shape of them, pressed tight to her chest. "I could be the judge of that," he says, and presses a kiss to her neck, catching stray hairs between his lips. He ignores them. "If you told me how it goes while you're imagining."

The Inquisitor makes a little cough, and says, "I'll try, but I'm not used to saying that sort of thing aloud." But she runs her fingers down an old scar that rips from his side halfway across his stomach, tracing out its path. "I usually think about you late, right when I'm going to bed. If I'm not too tired. It'll be dark, and I'll be getting myself comfortable." She bends a little, and presses kisses in a line across his chest. Maker, but his cock is aching now. It's hard not to rush, but it's not like he's a kid anymore. He'll hold out. She must be able to feel it too, pressing against her thigh when she moves.

He reaches around to start undoing the ties up her back. He leans in and whispers in her ear, "You wear anything to bed?" It takes a few tries to undo the knots, working basically blind as he is. But it comes loose and parts in his hand and he eases away the thick layers of nearly stretchless cloth. He puts it aside and leans back just a bit so he can look at her. Maker, the freckles aren't just on her face. They're light enough down her neck, but they come back in full force all over her tits. Oh, they're big for an elf, too; a good fit to her frame which, shit, is more muscular than his is these days. Samson doesn't think twice about acting on his next urge, and lifts up one of them with both hands, and he puts his mouth all over it, swiping with his tongue, kissing, even giving her tight pink nipple a few hard sucks. He's never touched anything so soft in his life.

She makes a delighted gasp at his attentions that sings like lyrium in his ears. Her breath is coming nice and heavy when she answers, "Not anymore. Not usually, unless it's too cold. But I get good and comfortable, and I'll close my eyes usually. I think of kissing you. I mean, I do that all the time. But your lips are, oh, they're so _soft_ , how are they so soft?" She arches her back, rocking on his lap enough to nearly drive him mad. He doesn't want to take his hands off her, he can't take his hands off her, but he's going to _have_  to, at this rate. But the Inquisitor does catch the need in the sound that comes out of the back of his nose, and her hands make their way to his belt. He has to stop for just this second, stop with his lips quivering against her skin.

His teeth drag as she fumbles with his belt, finally gets it open enough to start undoing his pants. He finally takes his hands off her chest to start getting her leggings undone, but pulls up short. "Shit, shit, boots." She slides off his lap and turns around, lifting her feet up to tug off her boots. She drops them to the ground, then tosses her socks in after them. He bends down too, getting his own off. Socks, he just throws as far away as he can before she notices how badly they need a wash. Not that there's enough room here for that, but it's a valiant effort. As they both take the second to strip down the rest of the way, he finally answers her, "Used up all my luck on them, I guess. Until now."

So there they are, sitting on his bed, both in nothing but their smallclothes. He's hard as a rock, and she's eyeing him openly. The Inquisitor touches her tongue to her lips, and asks, "Show me? I imagine kissing you, and then I, well, I take my hand down here, like this..." She takes that hand, and she slides it down over her pale freckled tit, not stopping, just taking it down, down, down, until it vanishes into her smalls. Samson doesn't even realize he's holding his breath until he gulps for air, then he carefully pulls down his own. He sighs with relief as his cock gets free from even that loose confinement. He looks to her face, watches her stare at his aching cock, and he's so captivated that the wet, wet sound her fingers make takes him completely by surprise.

Samson makes a strangled noise, and he just _moves_ ; lifts her up and puts her on her back. He pulls her smalls right off, while she makes this surprised little squeak. But she smiles at him, and she doesn't take her hand away from herself, just one single finger pressed up inside her. He reaches out and he takes hold of her by the thighs, lifts her up, and he just buries his face in between her legs. Her hand starts to pull away as his tongue just dives up inside of her, but instead her finger pushes at his tongue, just a bit, guiding him some. She's wet as a swamp in there, and he wants to collect every drop.

She gasps thinly, the noise cutting itself short before it gets very loud. "It's always like that when I think of you," she whispers, breath coming hard enough to make her voice shake. "My fingers always slip." But she stops talking for a bit then and just presses her shoulders tighter to the bed, making a thin, insistent noise out of the back of her nose. Samson has just enough space to look up her body like that as he licks and sucks at her, at her tight, freckled stomach, the way her tits flop toward her head when he lifts her up a bit higher. "Please, please," the Inquisitor gasps. "Enough of that, oh, please, I need to feel you inside me, please."

Reluctantly, Samson lowers her back to the bed, draws his head back. His face is just soaked and sticky, and he never wants it to feel otherwise again. But he can't neglect his cock any longer, and she won't wait a minute more either. He carefully eases atop her, reaches down with one hand to rub the tip of his cock in all that wetness, then poise it between her lips. His breath is coming hot against her face when he asks her, "All ready?"

The Inquisitor shifts first, lifting her hips some and wrapping her powerful thighs around his waist, linking her feet together to form a circle. Her hands come up onto his shoulders, squeezing them tight. Only then does she tell him, "Yes," and he slowly pushes inside of her. There's no explosions behind their eyes, not that there ever are, but, oh, how she's hot and tight around his cock, and just being inside her sends this warm tingly feeling out into him. His hips start working, urged deeper by the sharp squeezes of her legs, and it takes a few tries but he gets a good, firm rhythm going. She bites down on her lip when she starts to make a moan, but Samson solves that issue by pressing his lips hard against hers, teeth bumping against each other.

She doesn't close her eyes when they kiss, or while he's inside her; instead she looks right up at his face, deep into his eyes. So he looks right back at her, taking in every last freckle on her face. Shit, she's beautiful, her face rapt in pleasure. What in the world she sees looking up at him, he doesn't know, and right now, he's not going to ruin it by asking. But she holds onto him like he's the driftwood that's keeping her from drowning.

It doesn't take that long, really. They've both been holding it in for long enough that it's no time at all before she starts pawing insistently at his back, gasping out desperate nasal sounds at each thrust. And he feels that tingling heat grow all the stronger, until he just can't deny it any longer. The Inquisitor's legs grip Samson's waist vice-tight as he works his hips two or three final times, loosing it all in short, sharp spurts inside her. She bites down on her lips hard, but her throat works frantically in a silent squeal up at him. Her nails dig like little pinpricks into his skin for what feels like an age, before they finally relax against him.

He slowly pulls out of her when she lets him move again, then practically falls onto his side next to her. He lifts her up to rest on top of him, so they can both fit more easily on the narrow bed, and he rests his hands at the small of her back. He whispers, sending heavy breaths into her ear, "Creative enough. I certainly wasn't bored."

The Inquisitor chuckles, dropping her head to rest against his shoulder. "Is it... was I all right? I'm not sure I did enough..." She rubs her cheek against his bare skin, breathing hard on his neck.

"It's fine," he tells her, running fingers down her back, squeezing her backside. "Better than fine. You were... I couldn't have asked for more."

Now she giggles, and makes her little snort. "You wouldn't have asked," she says. She lifts her head and she kisses him again. She says after that, more timidly, "I shouldn't stay for very long. I'll be missed if I'm out all night."

Just how it's got to be, really. Samson nods, lets out his breath into her mop of hair. "Nothing to be done for it," he says, squeezing her close against him. "But we have time. A while longer?"

The Inquisitor rests her unmarked face on his shoulder and nods. "A while longer," she agrees.


End file.
